Brigitte Snaps
by Kount Xero
Summary: AU/what if.  Brigitte and Sam pick up the pieces, but their shared past won't leave them alone. Jason McCardy has gone missing - could there be another wolf on the loose? Sequel to After Ginger Snaps.  Swearing and violence.  Please read and review.
1. Prologue, After

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

_Author's Note: This one takes place immediately after "25's and the Royal Blues." For the full sequence, you should read "After Ginger Snaps" and "25's and the Royal Blues."_

**Prologue  
><strong>**(After.)**

Sam walks into the living room, still shrugging off that sweet hangover of pleasure at every step, and finds his ever-ready pack of Victories on the birch coffee table... sitting practically at the feet of Brigitte Fitzgerald.

He looks at her, and she visibly stiffens up with his presence. She almost shirks, almost moves away, and he can't help but think she'd feel better if she actually did to that. He sits down right next to her, and she shoots him a look through strands of frizzy hair, like she can't believe he's just sitting there, stark naked, and reaching for his cigarettes.

What's so strange, he wonders, but then he remembers. Oh. She doesn't... she's never been there before, where they are now, wherever it is, is unexplored territory for her. There are no maps for these territories, he knows.

Sam lights up and inhales the smoke. Halfway through this cigarette, he guesses, things will make sense. Brigitte's silent presence becomes more pronounced at each drag. He passes the cig. She takes it, takes a few drags, passes it back.

"So." He says, trying to prompt a response.

"So." She counters. She opens her mouth, and he can see her tongue twisting, fumbling for words. "What now?" she asks.

What now, really? He's never considered that question before, so, in a way, this is unexplored territory for him. He looks at her, hoping to find the answer, but all he can see is that same Venus in furs – her pale, thin fingers gripping the blankets tighter, her body curling up even more to hide her nudity. Afraid, ashamed.

"What now?" he says, "Now... we cope."


	2. The House that Brigitte Built

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**1. The House that Brigitte Built**

There is a home beneath her home, a place beneath the house that was meant to be finished a long time ago, but was left to become the home-within-a-home.

Brigitte remembers how she and Ginger built their home, the place they imagined would survive the apocalypse in their endless games of World Ends. She remembers how they built, from scratch, a world of their own there.

Now, standing in front of the house that will allow her to get to the home that she built within it, Brigitte can only shuffle her feet and hope to find the strength to return to that place, which is nothing but a home for old memories, bitter thoughts and the emptiness Ginger left behind.


	3. Echo

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**2. Echo**

There is little left in the room, and with all the bitter reminders of fond memories; with the good artifacts of bad times stripped away, the room resembles more a tomb than it ever did before.

Brigitte goes there after school sometimes, if Sam is too busy to pick her up or if she just needs to be there on account of being abused by her peers one way or another. She likes to sit on the bed she used to sleep in, and bask in the familiarity of it all.

In a way, this room is her sword and shield.

If she closes her eyes, beneath the reverberation of the house's intrinsic hum, she can hear the echoes of Ginger's laughter, along with the shy whispers of her own.


	4. Mirror

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**3. Mirror**

The pale, ugly little mess in the mirror looks back at Brigitte and she wonders who the hell this person is. She has long, messy hair that never seems to get to be as beautiful as any other girl's. She's pale, and very thin – hell, if she runs a finger across her stomach, she can feel each rib. She doesn't have hips. She doesn't have breasts, well, not at a level that they can be realistically called breasts.

Her legs are like twigs and her shoulders are too sharply angled.

What Sam finds in the combination of all this, she doesn't understand – and that's a line she's stolen from the peers of Trina Sinclair.


	5. Action Beat

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**4. Action Beat**

Sam pulls up in front of the school and turns the engine off. He lights a cigarette, his last before going wherever, and watches the grounds fill up with students in small groups, eager to get inside and to get shelter from the winter cold.

He takes his first drag and waits for that action beat, that one moment of silence before Brigitte straightens her spine, kisses him goodbye and gets out of the car. It is that split-second of inaction that tells him all he needs to know and reluctance, he feels, is somehow worse than fear as far as responses go.

But that's a battle he knows he can't win. He has his own action beat in this, and that's enough.


	6. Implications

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**5. Implications (His Side)**

Sam has often considered the implications of her, not just to him personally, but to his own environment as well in the last two months. He's already aware of the rumors going around – he's the cherry hound, she's the cherry, and that's all there is to it.

Sam doesn't wish it was all that simple.


	7. No Such Thing As a Free Lunch

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**6. No Such Thing as a Free Lunch**

Brigitte looks forward to lunch.

Ever since the first few days of her return to school, come lunch hour, without fail, Sam is there, and while normally he used to be there to deal during lunch, now he seems to come for her only. Lunch hour is a free-for-all, take-what-you-can-get, all-out open season, and Brigitte has no protection such as hall monitors (and even then their responses are ad hoc) or classes starting.

It's not that Sam does anything. With the stigma of a suicide in his bedroom, he can't even properly retaliate to her aggressors out of a rational fear that this is exactly the kind of altercation that leads to lockup.

She wouldn't ask him to, at all, and she knows his hands are tied – but his tongue is loose, so there is always talk of leaving there for somewhere where nobody knows them. But Brigitte at least wants to get her grade ten, so they're stuck.

So instead, just does what he can. He sits next to her, wherever she is, and keeps her company. Sometimes, he doesn't even speak, he just reads. In rarer opportunities, they even play the odd game of Search and Destroy.

For Brigitte, that's more than enough. As long as he's there, she's free from what usually never lets her go – but her freedom is always strained by the upcoming bell and the end of Sam's own lunch hour, because there is no such thing as a free lunch, and the price for having protection during lunch is not cheap.


	8. Methodologies

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**7. Methodologies**

Everybody has their own favourite methodology, Brigitte has learned.

Hair pulling is big with the regular girls, those who have no distinction. Her hair is long and perpetually tousled, and stray strands or handfuls have a way of getting caught in the hands of passersby.

Field hockey is reserved for Trina's friends, who mourn their friend by creating as many bruises on her killer's genetic extension as possible. Brigitte mostly avoids the locker room in any way possible until they are all gone.

The boys are mostly verbal. There is the odd proposition, always, but it's mostly insults regarding her sexual preferences. Oddly enough, Jason McCardy and his friends are silent – they aren't friendly, but they aren't hostile either.

Some boys are more hands-on. Honestly, she prefers the hair-pulling and epithets to all the groping and laughter.

The school paper has its own methods, maybe, she guesses, that's because most of them were really buddy-buddy with the popular ones – they usually find newspaper clippings of her mother, or Ginger, and leave it in her locker for her to find.

Brigitte doesn't have a methodology.


	9. Dead Silence of Living Things

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**8. Dead Silence of Living Things**

The evenings in the greenhouse are usually spent in the passive company of each other. Surrounded by the plants and their non-conversation, each of them works on their own obligations. Brigitte usually takes the living room and does her homework and reads a little. Sam tends to the plants, cultivates his product and cruises online for rare things he can add to his collection, maybe to sell and maybe just to own.

The knowledge that the other one is in the next room is enough for both of them most of the time. Other times... that's a whole different story involving a whole another kind of non-conversation.


	10. Necessities and Luxuries

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**9. Necessities and Luxuries**

Sex is something that she is still figuring out.

It's a bit embarrassing, still, given that Sam seems to know all about it. Even after all this time, she still feels like a novice trying to compete with a master.

Bodies, live bodies are strange, Brigitte has discovered, and live bodies all wired are even stranger. She has learned a few things, he has taught her a few things. Implementation of hands, hips, mouth, tongue and teeth, thighs and legs. Distance, proportion, direction of motion, sustainability of speed, economy of attention... it all plays out like the mathematical breakdown of a magic spell.

What Brigitte has figured out is that sex falls in between the cracks of necessities and luxuries: it's needed, but just having it, and having it good are two different things, and walking that fine line is an odd thrill for her.


	11. Cop Shrink

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**10. Cop Shrink**

"And, how long have you had these dreams?"

"I told you, ever since Caroline left, they have been exceptionally strong, but I do remember having them before."

"Well, Wallace, sometimes, divorce is more of a strain on a person that that person would like to believe. It's not a sign of weakness, you know."

"I never said it was."

"I won't try to interpret your dreams for you, but, would you consider taking a leave of absence for a few days? Between putting together a case for this cheerleader's death and the finalization of divorce, you can use it."

Cop shrink, Wallace thinks, what else did he expect? There isn't another solution with them, and he knows it.


	12. Everyday Details

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**11. Everyday Details**

Sometimes, after school, Brigitte goes to the Mount Hope cemetery. She does it even in the blistering cold of the Bailey Downs winter. She finds Ginger's grave and tells her of the everyday details of what happened to her since her last visit. The names she's been called, the bruises she has, that movie she saw with Sam, how the house is now fully hers, how maybe they are thinking of moving there... how Pam's trial process is going, how Henry has apparently dropped off the grid.

She likes to imagine responses. Like, _Henry's disappeared? See, B, I knew we were adopted, fucking knew it!_

"One thing doesn't change." Brigitte says to the tombstone, "I miss you. Every day."

_You're supposed to miss me, B, I'm dead. That's how it goes._


	13. Stain

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**12. Stain**

The stain is still there. After a knuckle-skinning, back-breaking, shoulder-dislocating amount of scrubbing, using chemical mixtures the fumes of which they suspect might have rendered them both sterile, the pool of blood is still on Sam's carpet and on the ground on their hands.


	14. Nightmares

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**13. Nightmares**

Brigittte still has the nightmares. The worst night of her life is always played in perfect sequence, in linear progression of one scene to the next, until she either wakes up screaming or wakes up shaking.

Sometimes she feels like she is at the edge of the world and is about to fall, and that's when Sam catches her.


	15. Panic Point

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**14. Panic Point**

And then one day, two months and two weeks in, McCardy didn't show up for school.

Brigitte noticed his absence more profoundly than most in the morning, as her locker was a little ways away from his. No show for the first period. Odd, but that had happened before, so she let it go.

Third period marked her panic point. He wasn't there, which meant, he wasn't coming. Sitting in biology, all Brigitte could think about was, calm down, keep it together – people were absent all the time with reasons far more ordinary than a case of sexually transmitted lycanthropy.

Fifth period marks her flight point. She can't take it anymore. She excuses herself, runs to her locker to get her things for tomorrow, and bolts afterwards.


	16. Tranquillizer

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**15. Tranquillizer**

"Okay, slow down, you don't know any of that." Sam says, "Did you think to check on McCardy's house, maybe he was home sick?"

"Of course I did!" Brigitte says, "It took me half an hour to even get his mother to acknowledge that she was in there! He wasn't home. She said he got up in the morning, left for school, and that's all she wrote."

"Could be that he just decided to cut class, go smoke somethin' up. He bought a lot a few days ago, so he might be busy rolling those – there is no reason to panic here."

"It's that big what if, Sam."

"I know, you said that. And I still stand by what I said, push comes to shove, you know what a linoleum knife can do."

It shouldn't work, that line, not in the slightest. But it does.


	17. Keeping Tabs

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**16. Keeping Tabs**

The next day, Brigitte was all eyes for Jason McCardy.

He didn't show for the first two periods.

He didn't show for the third.

Don't panic, people can be absent for all kinds of reasons.

Lunch, Sam.

Come fourth period, he's still not there, which was when keeping tabs on him became a game of guess what, where and how – all the possible combinations of either a corpse or a lycanthrope. Either way, she has to get out of there.

So Brigitte discreetly packs her things, one or two at a time, into her bag. There's five minutes on the clock and if she can make it, she means to make a run for it – get out.

Just then, the door of the classroom opens. Brigitte looks to see the familiar face of Wallace Rowlands.

"Hello, excuse me, I need to talk to Brigitte Fitzgerald, is she here?"


	18. Bliss of Ignorance

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**17. Bliss of Ignorance**

If eyes were spotlights, the amount of light shed on her would make Brigitte blind. But, no choice but to cope, she takes her bag and tries to take solace in the small comfort that her plan's been worked out for her... just not in the way she wanted it .

They walk under the pale lights of the hallway, watched by the lockers on both sides.

"What's this about?" Brigitte asks.

"Sure you don't want your lawyer present?"

"Nah. It's okay."

"Alright. Jason McCardy's been reported missing today."

Brigitte feels her blood circulation slow to a crawl.

"...what?"

"His mother reported him missing this morning, but given that he's been missing since yesterday, we're about ready to treat this like we would any other missing persons case."

Flight response, coupled with irritation towards the bliss of his ignorance fires her up and makes her ears burn.

"Why come to me?"

"I already spoke to his friends. You're the only other person relevant to it, far as I know. More relevant than others might think."

"Is that your view?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"I don't know anything about McCardy. We don't exactly associate."

"You still have my card?"

"Yes. Just so you know, I really don't know, wish I did. This isn't a stonewall."

It actually is, but ah, the bliss of ignorance.


	19. Jerusalema

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**18. Jerusalema**

Sam feels the coppery, rich taste of the rye slide down his throat as he observes the pot in front of him. Jerusalem lily, or, as it is also known, Jesus flower. Jesus. It cost more than thirty pieces of silver, that much he feels in his back pocket.

He's about to double-check the type of soil it requires, just to make sure, when the door opens and Brigitte, out of breath and face fixed in the familiar expression of overwhelming dread, enters.

Oh, shit, he was supposed to pick her up from school!

"I was just about to head out..." he fibs, it's bullshit, but hopes it'll make its mark. She approaches, still breathing heavy, but doesn't –or can't- say anything. "Brigitte, what is it?"

"We have a problem."


	20. Certainty

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**19. Certainty**

"Are you certain, and I mean, sure?"

Certainty isn't a luxury, Brigitte thinks, it's a bare necessity at this point.

"I can't think of any other reason why he'd disappear." Brigitte says, "I thought about it, every possibility and no matter what I do, he's either dead, which I doubt, or lycanthrope, and that's where we have a problem."

"We still have the monkshood, but that, apparently, doesn't do jack shit, so the only thing left..."

His sentence floats, drifts through the few moments of silence and fills each second with meaning. The invisible, yet comforting protection of monkshood, when absent, is more pronounced than it was when they thought the flowers worked.

It also confirms Brigitte's worst fear and best hope: that helping Ginger was impossible.

"Linoleum knife." Brigitte says, "It worked so well the last time."

"Yes... yes it did."


	21. The Masterplan

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**20. The Masterplan**

"So, what now?" Brigitte asks, "I mean, any ideas?"

"We can't go out there and look for him, I mean, if he's transformed fully, we'd be sitting ducks in the woods. That'll be his game. We can wait it out. He'll come to us, eventually."

"What makes you think that?"

"Today is what, the third?"

"Yeah?"

"In about four days, he'll be drawn here, I think."

Brigitte doesn't get it. Her thought process steamrolls over whatever doubt she might have had. And then, bingo.

"You've been keeping track of my cycle?"

"I have to. It's a hazard."

"Says he who doesn't suffer the period itself."

"Well, you said it was the reason why it went for Ginger the last time..."

"I'm just shitting you." Brigitte says and when he smiles is when the urge hits her.


	22. Differences

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**21. Differences**

Brigitte remembers reading somewhere that heartbreak can kill you, because your body can't distinguish between a broken heart and the need to run from an actual predator, and overexerts itself into cardiac arrest.

If so, she wonders, can that also be true for danger and arousal?

Her body can't seem to distinguish these two states of perception, and Sam's hands roaming now familiar terrain tells her that neither can his.


	23. Dog Eat Dog

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**22. Dog Eat Dog**

Brigitte barely pulls her hand back, and that, she can only do by reflex, when a hand slams her locker door into place. She turns to face the Trina-copies, now elevated from being poor betas to poor alpha-imitators. One of them holds up a leash.

"What the fuck did you do to my dog?"

Brigitte can't help but look at her like she just drooled all over herself.

"I didn't do anything."

"Bullshit. He's missing, and you had something to do with it."

Perfectly-manicured hands, sharpened into weapons, grip her arm. Brigitte winces, but doesn't make a sound.

"This," Trina 2.0 says, "isn't over."

They all leave. Let them. Brigitte doesn't care about them, or how hopelessly blind they are to this – that in this dog-eat-dog world, the wolf eats all the dogs.


	24. Half Truth to a Lie

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**23. Half Truth to a Lie**

Wallace Rowlands taps on the wheel of his car, watching the schoolyard, and waits for Brigitte to appear. This isn't his idea of an actual investigation, hounding a fifteen year old girl whose only fault seems to come from a gene pool that gives a whole new meaning to dysfunctional. But who is he to judge, there he is, off-duty, on mandatory leave and without any kind of business being there, preparing to tail her.

It's not that he doesn't believe her, he does, but he thinks she's telling him half the truth. Wallace knows that it's a slippery and cruelly short slope from a half truth to a lie, and that's why he needs to keep watching.


	25. Look Pretty and Bleed

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**24. Look Pretty and Bleed**

Brigitte is cold. It's not cold anywhere, actually, but her eyelids, part of her nose and her inner thighs are freezing. Standing in front of the greenhouse, ankle-deep in snow, in pain and bleeding, she crosses her arms and looks at Sam, who is standing there, wearing a pea coat and holding knives. He looks like a deranged sailor who just got off the ship to go kill himself some virgins.

"I feel like a piece of meat!" She says, teeth chattering, "It's too windy to smell anything anyway. This is a waste of time!"

Another gust rolls in to make her shiver and prove her point.

"Just look pretty and bleed, alright?" Sam replies, "It's the only kind of lure we know other than dogs! And I tried the damn pet store already, they aren't selling dogs anymore!"

Brigitte clenches her teeth, tenses her muscles and bears it. Look pretty and bleed. She has the bleeding part down pat, that's for sure.


	26. Creative Bruisers

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**25. Creative Bruisers**

Brigitte spends the next day in some sort of a sensory contradiction. The onset of what she knows is a cold makes her ache, and cancels out her cramps. That's good, but her fatigue is considerable, and it isn't helped by the regular gauntlet she runs just to get to her books, and her aching is cancelled out by actual pain.

There are some creative bruisers out there today, who saw fit to hang bloodstained dog collars from her locker. The blood is still fresh, it pools on the floor, by her shoes. Brigitte counts the collars. Five in total, without the one she saw yesterday, which makes it to an even six.

Having such aggressors is good, Brigitte decides, because she can keep count without having to go out and check every house, news bulletin and newscast herself.


	27. Cold

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**26. Cold**

Brigitte sniffs, unable to catch any sort of scent or even draw in air through her nose, and rubs her nose with the back of her hand. Her nose is sensitive, red and completely blocked, and her entire body is aching.

Sam comes into the room, their room, and steps around the stain, carrying in his hands what Brigitte hopes will be chicken soup. It is. She doesn't have words for the type of gratitude she feels, but she sees, to her surprise, he doesn't need her gratitude.

"Just feel better." He says, and taps the top of her head.

Sam sleeps on the couch, with a knife on the coffee table beside, and often wakes up during the night to one of Brigitte's many trips to the bathroom.


	28. News

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**27. News**

Four more dogs missing, says the news, and who is Sam to argue with that? There is no set pattern of attack, as indicated by the map in the background of the news reporter, Sam sees, but the pattern isn't the issue.

The issue is the possibility of two or more girls being out later than they should, thrill-chasing without thinking about what they will do if, and in this case when, they catch it.


	29. Full Recovery

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**28. Full Recovery**

Brigitte loves the bare idea of a nice bath, and she'd even settle for a shower now that the fever's gone.

Brigitte looks at the body mirror. Her face is paler than usual, but that's okay. Her hair is still the same mess. Still no breasts, hips or other requirements. Her body is covered in bruises, some big, some small, some uglier than necessary and all marks of a hostile environment.

Full recovery, she notes, is a fucking joke, because you never fully recover, your wounds become scars is all.


	30. Field of Dogs

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**29. Field of Dogs**

Sam opens the front door, steps into the snow, up to his ankles, and stops. Strewn across the space between his van and him are the mangled corpses of dogs, some with their entrails scattered, one with its head a little ways away from its body, but all of them a different bloody mess contributing to a whole collage of bloody messes.

He doesn't know what it means, exactly, but it doesn't take much to know it isn't anything good. He quickly goes back in to take a shovel - Brigitte is in the bath, and she shouldn't see this.


	31. Home Again

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**30. Home Again**

Brigitte doesn't go to school. She goes straight to her house, gets in and locks the door behind her. No matter what she does, there is an undeniable sense of home in this house – just like no matter how she tries, thinking of the greenhouse as her home is impossible.

Brigitte gets down to her room and takes her place on her bed like she always does. She just sits there for an hour or two, simply listening to the indigenous reverberation of the house humming. She stares at the now-partially-bare walls, traces the cracks and dents in the paint that she knows like the lines in her hand.

Brigitte puts her bag on the floor and lays herself down, eye-contacting the ceiling.


	32. The House that Ginger Built

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**31. The House that Ginger Built**

The room is emptier now of artifacts, but somehow fuller with meaning and feeling – Brigitte doesn't see the presence of her stay, or herself in the room, she sees the absence of herself inside the house that Ginger built.

In the absence of her own unique signs, Brigitte can see the marks Ginger has made in the house – the outlines of photographs and notes she fought to take back from the police, the bed sheets, the candles, the beads and other decorations... Ginger's signs, Ginger's souvenirs, Ginger's echoes.

There's a knot in her chest that's pulling at her entire being. Brigitte turns to her side, turning her back on Ginger's side of the room. She cries, silently.

"I miss you." She says.

_I'm always with you, B. Together forever._

"Together forever... but you're not here."


	33. Bailey Downs at Sundown

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**32. Bailey Downs at Sundown**

Brigitte walks back to the greenhouse. Bailey Downs at sundown is more morbid than she ever cares to remember, or to observe: the children and teens, all wrapped in the thickest coats they could get their hands on, hurriedly follow habitual paths to their homes, where it's warm and where there is light, because light is fast deserting the outside world.

Brigitte wonders what the rush is for – home is no shelter.

She walks up the driveway to find the van gone and that's when she remembers Sam usually picks her up from school in about, she checks her watch, fifteen minutes.


	34. And Then Everything

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**33. And Then Everything...**

Brigitte takes out her key, inserts it into the lock on the greenhouse door, rotates it to hear the lock clicking, and the promise of a bit of warmth courses through her veins as if she was already in.

A moment's silence, and Brigitte feels the standstill of the world, just for a stray moment.

And then everything suddenly shifts incline and her sense of direction is lost as she is thrown off her feet and into the snow by what her ears perceive as an approaching growl attached to a blur.


	35. The Encounter, I

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**34. The Encounter, I**

Brigitte can't move, scream or perform any sort of action because she is lying on her back in snow and the wolf, in all its grizzly glory and horrifying visage, is standing over her. It's looking at her, watching her.

Brigitte feels her breath get knotted up in her throat as the wolf's mouth opens, revealing the length and number of teeth, and it growls. Brigitte shivers, she tenses up, but she just can't move, her limbs are refusing to perform regular motions. It's fear, crippling her.

The wolf lingers, as if sizing her up, and then, starts to sniff her, the front teeth, sharp as daggers, scraping her coat and the beast's entire body leans in. Drawing in the air, its nose travels across her neck and circles her breasts and Brigitte shudders in disgust.


	36. The Encounter, II

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**35. The Encounter, II**

A gunshot explodes and the sound scatters in the wind, thinned by the openness of the area. The lycanthrope shifts, head snaps up and eyes fix dead on the source of this strange noise. Brigitte feels the paralysis lift, partially, and she gets on her elbows and starts to crawl out from underneath it.

The beast casually raises a front paw and places it square in the center of her chest – the pressure elicits a painful yelp from her, and she is stilled.

"Let her go!"

Brigitte tries to move. She can't. The beast tenses up, and Brigitte feels the weight on her chest lessen. Whoever her savior is, he's about to go down with this act, so she screams as loud as she can,

"_Watch out!"_


	37. The Encounter, III

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**36. The Encounter, III**

Brigitte's prediction becomes reality as the lycanthrope launches itself across the snow towards whoever it is that came to her rescue. Brigitte scurries to her feet and then looks to see the wolf turning to face a greatcoat-clad Wallace Rowlands aiming at it.

"Go inside, Brigitte!" Rowlands shouts, and Brigitte complies – she rushes across the greenhouse to get to Sam's room, where, on the bedside, is the goddamn linoleum knife that made the stain.

Two shots... three... scatter in the wind outside.

Brigitte takes the knife, the feel of its handle in her palm familiar enough to stir the scars on her forearms, and runs back out.


	38. The Encounter, IV

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**37. The Encounter, IV**

Brigitte pushes the door and rushes out into the cold evening air, linoleum knife in hand and a scream reverberating in her throat. She makes a beeline for the lycanthrope that's swaying from side to side, looking at Rowlands, who is aiming at it.

Like the lycanthrope, Brigitte throws herself forward, pushing the ground and flying, and she brings down the knife, hook-end pointing down, only to miss as the beast pounces to it and moves out of her way. She falls face-first into the snow and a stone cuts her cheek. Brigitte rolls, pushes the ground, spreads her legs and stands right back up.

Two shots and Brigitte sees the barrel flash. Her grip on the knife tightens. She's ready.


	39. The Encounter, V

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**38. The Encounter, V**

"You fucking..."

Wallace swings a kick and misses by inches as the damn thing turns away and gallops it on out of here. He takes aim as it runs, fires, but it's a clear miss and fuck it, as the revolver lovers say, if the first six don't bring it down, another five won't make a difference. Here, it's the first five and the sixth not making a difference, but who's counting anyway?

He reels himself in, calms his breathing and looks at Brigitte, who's standing there with a knife in her hand, staring after the animal and breathing heavy.

"Hey!" Wallace calls. No response. "Hey, you okay?"

Brigitte looks at him. Wallace notices that her hand holding the knife is trembling.

"Mister Rowlands..?" she says, her face loses the look of complete shock and her eyes regain that cold look, "What are you doing here?"

"It's complicated. Hey, uhh, why don't we go inside? It's freezing out here."

"Am I gonna need my lawyer present for this?"

"I'm not on duty, so technically, this'll be off the record. Shit, even if it wasn't, I'm not sure I want to put any of this on the record."

"Alright, sure, come in."


	40. An Inch Away from Milk Cartons

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**39. An Inch Away from Milk Cartons**

Sam interprets the feeling as a mixture of anger, worry, fear and a fixation on the worst-case scenario, but all of that is nothing compared to the third cigarette he's chain-smoking choking him into submission.

For the love of fuck, why? Why would she do this? Why would she just wander off? Here they are, perpetually wobbling an inch away from making an appearance on milk cartons, and she's on her own in the streets after dark – and that's far more terrifying a thought than he ever could have guessed.


	41. Explanations, I

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**40. Explanations, I**

Sam pulls up the driveway and gets out. He stomps his way through to the door and is about to insert the key when he sees that it's unlocked. The world stands still for that moment, and then, he opens the door and rushes in.

He gets to the living room and the sight makes him stop dead at his tracks. There Brigitte sits, in one of the spare chairs in what is, for all intents and purposes both her room and the living room, holding a mug. Sitting across from her is none other than Wallace Rowlands, also holding a mug, smiling.

The hell...

Brigitte notices him.

"Sam... hi."

"Hey, what's..." what the hell, seriously, "...uhh, what's going on?"

"I can explain." Brigitte hurriedly says.

"Why don't you sit down?" Rowlands asks.

"'think I'll stand. What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing." Rowlands says with a smile, "We were just discussing lycanthropy."


	42. Explanations, II

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**41. Explanations, II**

Sam doesn't know what's more bizarre – that he's holding a cup of tea made by the same man who relentlessly tried to stick Trina's death on him; the fact that he's good-naturedly accepting the strange truth of lycanthropy; the fact that Brigitte seems rather quieter than usual; the fact that she has a cut on her cheek and oh God please don't let it be what he thinks it is; or the fact that Rowlands just poured some Old Goose into his tea. He's just not sure.

"What?" Rowlands asks.

"Nothing." Shudder to think what rye and tea tastes like, "So, does that perfectly-timed rescue come with a story?"

"I was tailing her." Rowlands says, "I was convinced that one or both of you were involved in the disappearance of Jason McCardy. It wasn't very likely that you," he points to Sam, "could be the one, so I decided to tail her instead."

"How long have you been following me?" Brigitte asked.

"About a week."

"When?"

"Mostly after school. I was settling into my usual spot for watching the greenhouse when that... thing... whatever it was, attacked you."

"Wait, wait, wait." Sam says, "One thing I still don't understand – how are you taking this so well? I mean, don't get me wrong, I have no objections to you not calling bullshit on this one, but how are you taking this so well?"

"I saw something that was a wolf, but not really a wolf... maybe a different kind of wolf. Far as I'm concerned, it's just a kind of wolf we haven't discovered yet."

"That makes sense." Brigitte says. Sam looks at her to see that she, too, is terrified of how Rowlands is just accepting everything.

"So," Rowlands says, "What about you two?"


	43. Explanations, III

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**42. Explanations, III**

The question, fat with implications, hangs in the air for a moment, waiting for one or the other to pick it up.

"What about us?" Brigitte asks.

"How did this," he waves his hand non-committally, as if to dismiss them, "happen?"

Brigitte glares at him.

"My mother is in jail. My father's gone. Sam is the only one I have left. How else do you think it happened?"

"Well, it's none of my business, really, just be glad nobody's called social services on you." Rowlands says.

"And why would they do that?" Sam asks, but inside, he has a pretty good idea.

"In the eyes of the law, what you two are doing is called statutory rape."

Sam's hand reaches out, and he wiggles his fingers. Brigitte takes his hand, and he squeezes. Rowlands catches the gesture, admires the sentiment but resents the implications.

"It's all we have." Sam says then.

"Personally, I could care less. I'm just surprised nobody phoned you up already, that's all."

"Nobody phoned," Brigitte says, ",because nobody cares, Mister Rowlands."

Rowlands hears the implications, resents the sentiment and accepts the explanation.


	44. Fantastic Notion

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**43. Fantastic Notion**

Wallace takes his leave, so as not to overstate his welcome, and when he gets out of the greenhouse and breathes the sleek, fresh snow smell wrapped around the cold night air, he feels relieved.

Lycanthropes. Huh. What a fantastic notion.

It all makes sense to him now: the dreams, the tension, the constant fear of something unknown at the edge of his perception... the walls, the wolves and the fire, it all makes sense.

He gets into his car, starts it, and drives away from the greenhouse, beginning on a road that ends with the most content sleep he has ever known in his life.


	45. Implications, Her Side

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**44. Implications (Her Side)**

Brigitte hunches and holds herself. Sam is a little ways away, sitting, fixated on his mug. She doesn't want to look at him, because she knows what she'll see.

She's often considered the implications of being there, of being with him; not just to herself, but to everyone else. When it comes right down to it, it's still a balance of his twenty-two against her fifteen, and no matter how she spins it, it's still a bit strange.

But that's okay, because strange is underrated and she does strange especially well.


	46. Horrible Notion

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**45. Horrible Notion**

Brigitte takes a sip of the rye, feels it burn her throat and coughs. She's not used to it raw – her and Ginger always watered it down a bit, but Sam, also sipping from the bottle, seems to have no problem with it at all, in fact, he's drinking it as if it _were_ water.

"We need to figure something out, and fast." He says, "Or else we're not gonna last very long out here."

"That's just the thing." Brigitte says, "I don't think it wants to kill me."

"What?"

"I think it wants..." Brigitte closes her eyes, she can't look at him while she says it, "...to mate with me."

She opens her eyes, and there is Sam, looking at her with empty eyes and a blank expression on his face. He sips from the bottle, relaxes a bit.

"What makes you think that?" he asks.

"It had me dead to rights out there, before Rowlands came. It had a good few seconds to do anything, but it didn't kill me."

"Maybe it was toying with you."

"It was sniffing me, Sam." Brigitte says, "It was checking me."


	47. Perfect Sense

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**46. Perfect Sense**

Sam hears a click in his head. Something falls into place and an idea is completed.

"That explains the dogs..."

"How? How is it wanting a mate explain why it kills dogs?"

"No, see, before you went to school, it came to deliver the carcasses of the dogs it's been killing. I found them all over the driveway."

Brigitte's eyes widen with fear, and Sam reaches out and puts one hand on her knee. With his thumb, he strokes her knee to reassure.

"It took me a while to shovel them all to a mass grave, I'll tell you that much."

"How does that explain anything?"

"I've been reading up on animal behavior. See, some animals, like domestic cats, collect carcasses or leave the animals that they killed for their owners to find, right?"

"That's right."

"Yeah, that, is the animal's way of teaching you to hunt. If that holds... then by that logic, it's offering me a challenge. Did you pay attention to what it did when Rowlands showed up?"

Brigitte thinks. Her memory plays it back exactly as it happened, with every detail, sensation and emotion, but Sam's perspective affords her enough angles to see it differently, to notice a more filtered set of specifics...

"It pinned me down." She makes a pushing gesture, "Like that, with a front paw."

"It fits." Sam says, "It wasn't so you wouldn't get away, it was to say," he puts his hand on her head to demonstrate, "Mine. It makes perfect sense."

The look on Brigitte's face is one of absolute horror, and upon seeing that, Sam notices what he just said.

"Shit... it makes perfect sense..."


	48. Stratagem

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**47. Stratagem**

They launch on their binary orbit, better accustomed to each other's movements and rhythms this time, and they circle, their thoughts locked onto the same notion, the notion that guides their thoughts in their circling as well as their steps.

"What do we do?" Sam asks.

"I don't know. We tried to wait it out, but it's clear that it won't work to our schedule. Besides, we never had a plan besides the monkshood."

"When's the next full moon?" Sam asks.

Brigitte checks the small calendar that Sam thought qualified a set of pads above others. She has every full moon marked.

"Today is what, the sixth?"

"Yeah."

"Three days."

"Fuck..." Sam says, his voice breaking, "Not enough time to bail, not unless we want to end up somewhere in Alberta with no money and nowhere to go. Barely enough time to prepare."

"You think it'll come?"

"I think it won't be able to help itself. Fuck me..."

He stops his hovering and sits down, prompting Brigitte to do the same. They stare at each other, hoping, perhaps, to find in the other one's eyes the solution they're both looking for.

"What do we do..?" Brigitte asks.

"Well," Sam sighs, "There's no avoiding it. It's gonna come, one way or the other."

Brigitte realizes in his refusal to say anything else what he actually means.

"That's your strategy? To wait here until it comes and then try to kill it before it kills or even wounds us?"

"I've got nothing else, Brigitte. I've got nothing."

Brigitte thinks about it. She doesn't have anything either.


	49. Despair in the Bed

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**48. Despair in the Bed**

Despair shares their bed with them that night as they lie side-by-side, face-to-face, without the barrier of clothing. It's warm in the room, here, and the moment is lazy, slowly moving forward without a worry in the world as if to hide the despair that's connecting them now.

They are studying each other under the dim, orange light of the room, they are observing the details of one another and taking measurements. Brigitte is measuring the space between his temple and his jaw with her fingers, and he's doing the same for the strands of her hair. Her toes are measuring responsiveness of his ankles, and his other hand, on her hip, is tapping a rhythm.

Brigitte feels that, no matter what, after all is said and done, it all comes down to the comfort she feels with him. To hell with the implications, as there is no comparison to what she feels here. There she is, naked, where she has been many times before and with him, still trying to find home in his touch.

Sam feels that, no matter what he does, when it comes right down to it, it's the balance of his twenty-two against her fifteen. That was why he always let her drive, because he could take what he wanted, when he wanted it, if he wanted it, in a variety of ways... only it would break her, and what has anyone else ever done but to break her? So he lies next to her, strokes her hair, and tries to find home.


	50. Night Comes Clean

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**49. Night Comes Clean**

Brigitte wakes up to a wonderful sort of ache that, for a few moments, almost cripples her. She hasn't yet learned to enjoy this, this thing called little deaths, but she's willing to try to get the hang of it. She breathes in the air, heavy with their smell, and smiles. All is well.

She gets up, naked, and stumbles to the bathroom. She looks at the body mirror and sees the twigs-for-legs, no-breasts-no-hips, mop-headed doll looking back at her, but doesn't mind her being there. Let her stay, she isn't harming anyone, everyone is just too keen on harming her is all.

She takes a shower to relax, maybe unknot some of the muscles that got all tangled up last night. She knows why she's feeling so easy – this is the hour before Death, where Life seems to carry so much beauty, value and joy that it's undeniable.

She runs her hands down with the small tides across her skin and the sensation feels wonderful, because the night comes clean in the morning and what she did in the night, she will never say.


	51. Affairs, In Order

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**50. Affairs, In Order**

Brigitte picks up her clothes and starts to get dressed. Sam, who's awake and just lying there, smoking his morning cigarette, smiles that lopsided smile upon seeing her.

"Hey there..." he says, "What's the rush?"

"I need to do a few things."

"Wait aren't you..." he checks the clock. Ten. "Aren't you exceptionally late for school?"

"It doesn't matter. What are they gonna do, call my dad?"

"Point taken."

"I just need to get my affairs in order."

"Which means, what, exactly?"

"I gotta swing by the house, there's some things I need to pick up there. I'll give Ginger a visit, and then come back here. I think you should do the same."

Sam is silent for a moment, but then he decides, fuck it.

"Thanks for the optimism, I mean, hey, you're all set to go."

"Go?"

"To die."

Brigitte just looks at him.

"Sam, I've been ready to die since I was nine."


	52. The House that the Pact Tore Down

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**51. The House that the Pact Tore Down**

Brigitte has two stops to make, and the first is the house that she and Ginger built. She takes the house first, because going into an actual grave that she has made for herself is easier than going to Ginger's grave.

She enters through the foyer, the eerie silence of the house humming heavily in the dim corridors. Every step she takes calls forth more memories, every inch further she ventures there awakens a sense of nostalgia in her. Like this is the last time she'll be there, like this is the last time she'll walk in the house that the Pact tore down.

She goes in and roams free. She goes from the living room to the kitchen and then lingers in the stairway. Upstairs is their parents' room, and Brigitte has only been there once or twice in her entire life. It doesn't seem fitting to go there now, now that she has no parents.

She instead goes down the stairs and to the room she and Ginger shared. Her hands scale the surfaces, knowing each crack and irregularity as if it were the letters of her own name and the rush of retrospect is almost overwhelming. Almost.


	53. Deal Sealer

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**52. Deal Sealer**

Brigitte decides not to delay it further and goes into the room. She's there to collect something, something that she is sure Ginger forgot. It's silly to think that after all these years, it can benefit her in some way, but that's what she feels, and she will not betray her own feelings.

She goes to her own bed, pulls the frame away from the wall and reaches down. There, wrapped in bubble wrap and duct taped to the frame, is the knife. She pulls it out and unwraps it with a delicate touch, respectfully and slowly. The knife deserves that much, at the very least.

It's nothing shiny, it's a wooden-handled woodcarving knife. The tip of it is still stained, Brigitte notices, stained with her blood, and Ginger's. The deal sealer is in her hands. It used to be Ginger's hidden weapon against monsters – in one of their many games, Ginger used it to save Brigitte... of course, then there was Franny Beckowit, the playground, and Brigitte's first and to date only other friend, and Ginger using the knife to save Brigitte again, but this time, not from a monster.

Brigitte hopes it will help her, now that she has a monster coming for her.


	54. Good Option

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**53. Good Option**

Sam has no idea what he's doing. He knows how to operate the rifle his father kept in the greenhouse, the modified Enfield. Ten rounds per magazine, every round has to be cocked into the barrel manually. That's all well and good, but actually shooting something, and hitting it, seems to be a more pressing issue than being able to shoot. He has never had any use for this thing before.

He doesn't even know how to shoot, at all, but the rifle is a good option to have, and that's all he feels he needs to know.


	55. Gravesitting

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**54. Gravesitting**

Cold marble, free of decorations, cherubs and all other nonsense, stares back at Brigitte as she stands there, reading the words **GINGER ANN FITZGERALD - BELOVED SISTER AND DAUGHTER.**

Beloved. What a strange word, Brigitte thinks, unable to express even a portion of what she really feels.

"Hello, Ginge." She says, "How are you?"

_I'm wicked. It's cold out there, right? Well, it's cozy here. Why don't you join me?_

"I'll get to that. Sooner than you think."

_What's with the long face?_

"This might be the last time I come here."

_You're leaving with Sam, aren't you?_

"No. At least, not yet."

_Don't lie to me, B, I can tell when you're lying. You have a tell._

"You keep saying that. What is it?"

_I don't know, I never figured it out. I told you that you had a tell to get you to fidget a bit when you lied, so then you actually did have a tell. Get it?_

"Wicked." Brigitte sighs, "I've got something for you."

She produces the knife. In her imagined response, Ginger's eyes widen a bit.

_Is that what I think it is?_

"It's Pam's woodcarving knife, yeah. I kept it."

_I remember how loud you screamed. I thought they'd hear us all the way from home._

"You were cutting my hand open with a carving knife, Ginge. There was too much blood... that was before I got used to the blood, used to the wounds and the deaths."

_Heh. I liked the deaths part. That part rocked._

"Not when it came down to it, Ginge. Your death wasn't pretty."

_My corpse was, and that's all there is to it in the end. Hey, remember the choking game?_

"I remember all of the games."

Silence. Both in reality and in her imagined conversation.

"I miss you." Brigitte says, "I don't come here often enough."

_I think you come here too much. I appreciate the company and all, but there's an end to everything B. Endings rock, don't you think? That's when it all comes together, so, here's your ending. Leave if you're gonna. I won't stop you._

Brigitte puts the knife back into her bag. She turns on her heels and intends to leave, but two steps and she remembers something.

"Oh, and, Ginge?"

_Yeah?_

"Take care of Mary Sue there for me, would ya?"

_Mary Sue? Who's Mary Sue?_

"She's my friend." Brigitte says, "She's been dead since she was nine."

_I can't make any promises, I'm no good at babysitting._

"Yeah, I know."

_Yeah, you really would. United against life as we know it, B, remember that._

"All I have is myself... and Sam."

_Then you two are united, it doesn't matter. United against life as we know it. Together forever._

Brigitte touches the two bird skulls hanging from her neck.

"Together forever."

Brigitte leaves the cemetery and walks back to the greenhouse.


	56. Full Circle

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**55. Full Circle**

Brigitte finds Sam busy by his workbench, with his purple candle burning under a very small, stainless steel pot. 40 proof alcohol, cottons and 10cc syringes tell Brigitte that he's hard at work making monkshood extract.

"It won't do anything." She says.

"Shit!"

Sam jumps, and knocks the candle on its side. The candle rolls on the bench, moving towards the edge, and he catches it just in time. He places it back, looks at the tools. Nothing's too messed up. He upturns the pot and pours its contents to the ground, takes the branch.

"I hate it that you can still sneak up on me like that." He says, "I know it doesn't do shit, but we know that it can at least delay the transformation, so I figure, it'll give us time to figure out a real cure if we get bitten."

No response.

He turns to her. She's just standing there, playing with her coat's button, and that's never a good sign. This is one of her many tells he has learned, this means she's holding something back.

"Everything okay?"

Brigitte comes along, pulls a chair and sits next to him. Without a word, she takes the monkshood branch, and starts pulling off the buds. Sam just looks at her, but saying anything will break her in that moment, so he shuts the fuck up and pours the alcohol into the pan as she grinds the buds.


	57. The Night Before

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**56. The Night Before**

Sam enjoys the presence of her as much as he can, feeling the time-lapse of despair crawling up every once in a while and reminding him that now they have two minutes less to the morning, three minutes, five minutes and there is just not enough time. Just not enough time in the night before to truly enjoy it.

Brigitte enjoys his closeness as much as she can. She doesn't think about how much time is left, because Death is a constant and timeless thing, and no matter how close they are to the morning or how distant, it's a fact she can't avoid. Instead, she listens to his heart beat to the background of his breathing, sighs and enjoys being this close to the edge of life.

Somewhere out there in the woods, the predator lurks, its gut rolling and on fire, its tongue slithering in its mouth, sliding over razor-sharp teeth – it is a creature made of pure desire, with nothing to need but to kill for pure pleasure, and the night before the full moon is like a fast before the feast.


	58. Howl

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**57. Howl**

Wallace pulls up in front of the greenhouse and turns the engine off. He checks to see if he has his gun. Yes, the Walther PK380 is ready. He has two spare mags, which he doubts will do anything, but they are there.

He gets out of the car and checks the scenery. Nothing but the wind, the snow and the cold night air... and the ghosts to keep him company. He shrugs, trying to shake off that ominous feeling that's coming over him, that this is just too calm and too quiet.

He opens the front door, and is about to call in, ask if anybody was there when a howl, full of malintent and hunger, rips right through the silence around him and confirms his gut feeling. Wallace listens in, gun ready, and hears ragged, animal breathing mingling with the rapid crunching of snow, but where is it coming from?

Halfway into the greenhouse, he stops and listens in. The beast is drawing closer, he can hear it coming, but from where, where are you damn it-

"Mister Rowlands?" Brigitte's voice.

Wallace turns to see her standing in the hallway, holding knives. Sam is right behind her, holding up a rifle.

Outside, the beast, closer, almost here, almost...

"You shouldn't be here." Brigitte says.

Wallace turns to her and opens his mouth to reply, which is when the wolf's teeth sink into his arm and shoulder, drawing blood – the jaws of the beast, strong as a vice, close and Wallace, through the pain, can feel the bones snapping. His grip on the gun slips, and the beast withdraws, dragging him along the snow like a rag doll and now, it is his turn to howl.


	59. Wolfsmond, I

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**58. Wolfsmond, I**

Brigitte feels a scream get all tangled up in her throat. The front door is left open and its swinging slightly in the wind, creaking at every move. Brigitte moves, pocketing one of the knives and takes the gun before hurriedly retreating back into the darkness of the greenhouse.

Throaty screams tear apart the winds outside as Wallace Rowlands is devoured by the wolf. He just doesn't stop, even when choking on his own blood and gurgling, he keeps screaming.

"Come on," Sam says, "The living room, let's go."

Brigitte puts her hands over her ears, she tries to, but she's holding a gun and a woodcarving knife, and it's impossible to shut the noise out.

"Brigitte, come on!" Sam reaches forward and pulls on her shoulder. She snaps to it and bolts, passing him by and into the living room. Sam follows her.


	60. Wolfsmond, II

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**59. Wolfsmond, II**

Sam takes his place behind the couch, rifle ready, and he can almost scan the entire living room just from where he's crouching. Brigitte is in the open, just standing in the middle of the room with the gun in one hand and the woodcarving knife on the other.

They both listen in. Nothing but the sound of their own breathing and their own pulse. Rowlands has stopped screaming, at last.

"He's dead." Brigitte says.

"We're not." Sam comments.

Something slides against the glass of the window, something furry. The sound of it irritates them both, and looking on, they see the vague outline of the lycanthrope, dragging itself along the glass. Sam aims the rifle at it and starts to trace it.

"Brigitte, move out of the way." He whispers, "You're in my line of sight."

"Okay."

Brigitte moves with the beast, too, only it in the opposite direction. After she takes two steps, the beast stops and the vague outline disappears. They listen. There is only the sound of the silence, humming, in the dark.

A small object appears in the glass and in a matter of a second, it grows much, much larger than it used to be and the corpse of Wallace Rowlands comes crashing through the window, sending a shower of shards onto the floor. The body bounces slightly off of the ground and goes, limbs flailing, onto the birch coffee table.


	61. Wolfsmond, III

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**60. Wolfsmond, III**

Brigitte screams, and Sam responds with an adequately-toned "Shit!" at the sight. Over the broken table is Rowlands, his clothes soaked in his own blood, his eyes open and his throat torn out. His limbs are in a twisted heap, one arm and one leg bent in a way that shouldn't be possible.

Brigitte looks at the direction from which it came, and there, in the window, is a great big hole. Big enough to let anything in.

As if on cue, the lycanthrope leaps through the opening and into the living room, and Brigitte suddenly finds herself face-to-face with it.


	62. Wolfsmond, IV

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**61. Wolsfmond, IV**

Quick on the draw, Sam fires. The gunshot echoes in the room and the recoil hurts his shoulder – but the bullet burrows itself into the beast's fur. Nowhere in particular and nowhere special, but it's a hit. Sam loads another round into the barrel, takes aim and fires as the beast leaps towards him.

Another hit and the lycanthrope's claws dig into his arm, making him scream. The beast tips the couch over and loses footing, which is when Sam rises to his feet, using the gunstock as a walking aid, and then brings it to bear, cocks in another round, aiming to put another bullet in it's head this time.

The lycanthrope is too fast. It whips around just as Sam is taking aim and moves forward, shifting out of his line of sight, and Sam, still holding it where it was, starts to run backwards in order to create enough space to fire.

A bullet burrows itself into the lycanthrope. Another, another, another and a scream accompanies the hail of bullets. Sam looks to see Brigitte, screaming, pulling on the trigger of the Walther with all her strength.


	63. Wolfsmond, V

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**62. Wolfsmond, V**

Eight rounds in, the gun emits a soft clicking sound. Shit. It's empty, and Brigitte can't reach the only possible location of extra magazines. She drops the gun and retrieves the linoleum knife from her pocket. The lycanthrope shifts, sles sideways and it suddenly leaps forward, and its jaws lock on Sam's leg. Sam screams as the head of the wolf twists and pulls the ground out from under him. He slams onto the floor, his fingers barely holding he rifle, and the wolf tosses him towards the window.

Sam spins and crashes through the glass. Feeling shards dig into his skin, he falls hard. The snow scatters all around him and he feels the pain of broken ribs. All he can see is the starry night sky above, and for a moment, he feels more content than he has ever felt in his life.


	64. Wolfsmond, VI

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**64. Wolfsmond, VI**

The wolf slowly turns and Brigitte, still holding the knives, faces it. The glowing, yellowish eyes in the dark tell Brigitte all she needs to know – that this isn't Jason McCardy by any stretch of the imagination. Jason McCardy is dead, has been from the moment Ginger fucked him, and that's just a truth she is gonna have to live with... if she survives.

Brigitte hears the lycanthrope's low growl, rumbling underneath the hum of silence. She doesn't hear Sam. She assumes he must be dead or unconscious, but it's irrelevant at this point. Nine bullets in, she presumes to have some advantage.

"Well, come on, then." She says.

The lycanthrope leans back, putting its weight on its hind legs. Brigitte tenses up, but grips the knives tighter. If it's gonna leap, then she has one chance at this, and if she can make it work, then it's not gonna take anything else to kill this thing.

The beast stops.

"_What the fuck are you waiting for! Take me, come on, take me!"_

The lycanthrope leaps.


	65. Wolfsmond, VII

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**65. Wolfsmond, VII**

The wolf launches in a magnificent arc, and Brigitte side steps, knives at the ready. A flash and as the wolf lands, Brigitte plunges the woodcarving knife deep into its flesh, eliciting a painful howl. She reverses her grip on the linoleum knife and sinks it in alongside, and pulls both of them with all she has. The wolf howls, deafening her to any other sound and as she opens the damn thing's side open, blood gushes out of the wounds, more blood than she has seen in one sitting.

Her stomach churns, but Brigitte clenches her teeth and pulls on the knives harder, until they both slice open their exit path. Brigitte stumbles, loses her balance and falls. She sits right back up, and that's when the wolf spins around and goes for her. She slips down and flips herself onto her stomach, and the head misses, and with the wolf stepping forward, she is now under it's belly.

She flips again and brings one of the knives to bear.

That's when the wolf's jaws lock over her ankle and break it.


	66. Wolfsmond, VIII

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**66. Wolfsmond, VIII**

Searing, white-hot pain rushes through her body and cripples her, and her grip on both hands releases. The knives fall, and before Brigitte can do anything, the wolf starts to drag her out from under it.

The rough shape of the woodcarving knife, still near her, is distinguishable.

Brigitte grabs the knife and waits for the beast to pull on her a little bit more. Her mind, frantic in its rabid focus, calculates that in order to bring her out, it's gonna have to raise its head, or at least, turn its head, and both moves expose its neck.

She's gonna for the jugular. Just a bit more, just a bit more...

A gunshot explodes in the living room, and Brigitte feels the impact of the bullet in the beast. That's when she moves – she plunges the woodcarving knife into the furry neck and reaches out to wrap her free arm around the head. Using that leverage, she pulls on the knife and slices the wolf's throat, unleashing a stream of blood that spurts out and splashes over her.

It reminds her of Ginger, and this moment, awash with blood and pulse, is the most content she's ever been.


	67. Wolfsmond, IX

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**67. Wolfsmond, IX**

Sam limps in through the gap in the window, bleeding from his shoulder, chest and fuck knows where else, and watches the lycanthrope collapse. The thing falls down and lies, twitching, on the crumpled up carpet. Next to it, completely soaked in blood and on her knees, is Brigitte, one hand grasping the woodcarving knife like it was the last hope she had in the world.

He limps on, every step a chore with the pain in his stomach, and gets to her side. He sits down. He lets the rifle fall, and the barrel makes a loud thud on the ground. The rest is silence.


	68. Epilogue, Kiss of Wounds

"_**Brigitte Snaps"**_

**Epilogue  
><strong>**(Kiss of Wounds)**

They look at each other. They are both separate messes, soaked in blood, one his own and the other in the lycanthrope's, bleeding from their wounds. They look, but don't speak. There will be time for words later, harsh words, beautiful words, soft-spoken words with good intentions behind them, but for now, it's their silence, it's their non-conversation.

In the dead silence of living things, they, while living, have conquered the monster.

Sam looks at her, drinking the sight when he sees her mangled ankle, and the teeth marks running up her leg... and the blood...

"Brigitte, you..." he sees her wound, "Ahh, shit... _shit..._"

Brigitte looks at her hands. She's still holding the woodcarving knife. It's still sharp, still stained -stained fresh, even- and still ready.

She takes Sam's hand, and without a word, slices his palm open, eliciting a flurry of protests. Then, she finds her scars and adds a new one to them.

Brigitte intertwines her fingers with his. She presses her wound against his, mixing their blood, and watched his eyes trace her. The kiss of wounds isn't necessary at all, because they are both sharing the sickness now. It is symbolic, for Brigitte, it's a rite of passage, another one – one that she thought she had left behind, one that she can never quite leave behind.

"Brigitte..."

"United against life as we know it." Brigitte says, looking at him dead in the eye.

"United against life as we know it." He agrees.

They kiss, bleeding from cut lips.


End file.
